Making multi frame music videos

[Axelorox]

I'm interested in making one minute music videos for Instagram where there are multiple frames of me performing the different parts such as drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. They'll be limited to 4-5 frames per video, most likely 4.

I originally thought of using the Acapella app for this (I have an iPhone), but after watching some tutorials (including one from a professional musician) that there are syncing issues with the app no matter how on point one is with timing when playing the parts. I'd notice the syncing issues when watching Acapella videos in the past but had guessed it was due to people not being so strict with timing/rhythm, but it seems like there are issues inherent to the app too.

So now I am thinking of recording videos on my phone, then importing them onto a computer to sync in a video editing app. I've read about people using Filmora for this purpose but have been having trouble finding specific tutorials.

As for the recording process, I'd first record a drum track video, listening to a click track from another device. Then I'd load this video onto another device, so I can listen to it from there as a reference track while I record the next track (bass). After this, I'm not sure if I should just do the other tracks (guitars/piano + vocals) from listening to the drum track alone or the combined drum + bass track.

I have an iPhone 8 and a Zoom 2QN microphone. So far I've been using the 2QN as a microphone while the phone records camera but technically the 2QN can record both video and audio on its own.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Chipotle]

Any decent video editing app will work for this. You are on the right track (ahem), though!

One option I haven't seen mentioned here is an online editing site called WeVideo. The free version isn't all that useful (limited to 5min of finished video per month, with a big watermark on your 480p product) but for $5/month you get a pretty good package. You do need fast enough internet to up/download all your large video files. I use it all the time where I work and it's easily capable of doing what you need.

Of course, there are free options too that others can chime in with. Essentially, what you do is put each instrument video in a separate track, then scale down & move each track to a corner of the overall frame.

[Axelorox]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

Any decent video editing app will work for this. You are on the right track (ahem), though!

One option I haven't seen mentioned here is an online editing site called WeVideo. The free version isn't all that useful (limited to 5min of finished video per month, with a big watermark on your 480p product) but for $5/month you get a pretty good package. You do need fast enough internet to up/download all your large video files. I use it all the time where I work and it's easily capable of doing what you need.

Of course, there are free options too that others can chime in with. Essentially, what you do is put each instrument video in a separate track, then scale down & move each track to a corner of the overall frame.

Do you have any examples of videos you've made with WeVideo?

The part I'm most uncertain about is syncing the different videos. I see that some people start with a clap in each video followed by a set count-in to have a point to sync up to.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by Axelorox

Do you have any examples of videos you've made with WeVideo?

Not of multi-frame in particular, but here's a link to a tutorial I made for doing picture-in-picture/split screen which is basically the same technique. The process would be similar in other video editors, although the specifics of the interface would of course be different.

PiP and Split Screen WeVideo Tutorial

The part I'm most uncertain about is syncing the different videos. I see that some people start with a clap in each video followed by a set count-in to have a point to sync up to.

The clap can help you sync a video to its associated audio--you bring both into the editor, and visually line up the spike of the clap in the waveform.

Syncing multiple videos/audio together can be a bit trickier. Yes, you need some kind of countdown or clap/noise that is at the same place in all the videos. If you can have an audible portion of the click or drum track saved at the start of each individual part, that can work. Otherwise, have something like a 4-count ahead of the start of the piece that you can clap along to or something, so you have that visual and audio cue to sync up.

I'm sure others have tips or tricks to help make that happen.

[Brent Hahn]

You might like the added control you get by syncing and finessing the audio in a DAW. I do it with iMovie and Pro Tools. iMovie isn't purpose-built for multi-PiP, so you have to do some pre-rendering, but it works fine. If this interests you I can talk further.

[Doug Young]

Accapella is the easiest way to do this. I had zero synching issues, I suspect what you're seeing is people having trouble playing in sync.

That said, I use Final Cut, it's more powerful and flexible, and you can manually deal with sync issues whether caused by gear or the people. In a recent project, one person's camera had drift, so I had to resync by bumping frames every so often.Tedious, but it can be done. I don't usually encounter that, tho. If everyone starts the video recording at the same point, then it's easy to line up. Otherwise, a clap at the beginning can be a help. Its not usually that hard to just manually sync two parts free-hand, as long as everyone's actually playing in time to a common reference.

The basic process I use is to have some kind of time reference. It could be the first person playing if that provides enough of a feel. Or a click, or a drum track. It's basically exactly the same as recording and overdubbing multi-track audio.

In Final Cut, you can simply scale down multiple videos to fit wherever, tho I use some split frame plugins that make it a bit simpler, and provide easy animation options.

Depending on how polished you want to make it, you may want to deal with lighting/color differences Have each person hold up something white, so you can white balance. Or just ignore that and let the difference in the look of each video be a feature.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

In a recent project, one person's camera had drift...

If it's of any help, I've found that in those cases the amount of drift is usually a tenth of one percent. At 30 fps, that's one frame for every 33 seconds and 10 frames of running time.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

If it's of any help, I've found that in those cases the amount of drift is usually a tenth of one percent. At 30 fps, that's one frame for every 33 seconds and 10 frames of running time.

I think this issue had to do with iphone's variable rate feature. Weird, since I had 2 iphone shots - same exact iphone! and only one had the issue. I did scene changes every 10-15 seconds, so I just resync'd at each cut point. There is software that is supposed to fix this problem, and I'm surprised Final Cut doesn't just deal with it.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I think this issue had to do with iphone's variable rate feature...

Quicktime has an "inspect" feature where you can see what the frame rate of a clip is, and I've had iPhone clips that were supposedly shot 30fps turn out to actually be 29.97. Dropframe, iow. That difference turns out to be that same tenth of a percent. This is supposedly fixable with Handbrake. Mu success has been mixed, but that may be because I don't know what I'm doing.

[keith.rogers]

I'm waiting on a couple people to drop their phone videos to do a 4-up in Final Cut Pro. (I use Logic for audio.)

Ben Halsall has an effect plugin for FCPX that does 4x and 9x, and some others. I'm going to try it, though I've done 2x manually a few times. You have to line up the video audio tracks with the audio mix visually in these cases.

This one is the first time using a drummer, so I started with a scratch track of the full song (guitar+vocal), got the drummer to play his part, then went back and redid the guitar/vocal to fit a little better. (Could have been done with some sliding stuff around, but I did my video part then.) Now, the other 2 folks have to fit in that. We'll see....

Personally, I record video on a couple of older camcorders (if using 2 angles) or sometimes an older mirrorless camera because I pick a fixed frame rate and disable auto-whitebalance. But importing videos from phones usually works Ok.

I extract the audio from the video files, mix that, then line up videos with the audio mix in FCPX.